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Dream Work

Austria

2002

10 Min
Black and White
2.35:1
None
  • Currently 4.1/5 Stars.
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DIR Peter Tscherkassky

MUSIC Kiswasch Saheb Nassagh

Synopsis

A woman goes to bed, falls asleep, and begins to dream. This dream takes her to a landscape of light and shadow, evoked in a form only possible through classic cinematography.

Dream Work is – after L’Arrivée and Outer Space – the third section of my CinemaScope Trilogy. The formal element binding the trilogy is the specific technique of contact printing, by which found film footage is copied by hand and frame by frame onto unexposed film stock. Through this, I am able, in a literal sense, to realize the central mechanism by which dreams produce meaning, the “dream work,” as Sigmund Freud described it: displacement [Verschiebung] and condensation [Verdichtung]. The new interpertation of the text of the original source material takes place through its “displacement” from its original context and its concurrent “condensation” by means of multiple exposure.

Moreover Dream Work positions itself as an hommage to Man Ray, who, in 1923 with his famous rayographs in La retour á la raison was the first artist to use this technique for filmmaking, exposing the image by shining light through physical objects onto the film stock. —Peter Tscherkassky

Director

Original

Peter Tscherkassky

Born in 1958 in Vienna, Austria. Lived in Berlin 1979-84. Studied philosophy. Doctoral thesis: “Film as Art. Towards a Critical Aesthetics of Cinematography” (1985/86). Founding member of Sixpack Film. Organized several international avant-garde film festivals in Vienna and film tours abroad. Since 1984 numerous publications and lectures on the history and theory of avant-garde film. 1993 and 1994 artistic director of the annual Austrian film festival “Diagonale”. Editor of the book “Peter Kubelka” (1995; with Gabriele Jutz). Films since 1979. Recent book: Alexander Horwath, Michael Loebenstein (Ed.), “Peter Tscherkassky” (germ./engl.; Vienna 2005). —http://www.tscherkassky.at 

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Displaying 4 of 12 wall posts.
Picture of Sefer Taslı Sapık

Sefer Taslı Sapık

21Feb13

"In appreciation of the cinematic art of Man Ray."

Picture of Flavien

Flavien

26Sep12

Deux façons de rêver : celle des studios Dreamworks, celle du "Dream Work". La première impose comment il faut rêver. La deuxième propose comme on peut rêver, comment le film, analogue au rêve, peut opérer une atomisation des figures humaines en trainées opalescentes. Loin du mickeymousing visuel, les films libèrent la tête et permettent, comme chez Man Ray (à qui Tscherkassky rend hommage), un retour à la raison.

Aguaespejo likes this

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Scott Barley

31Aug12

Hypnotic, abrasive and beautiful. However, moments of reprieve would heighten the effect of the arrhythmic movements.

Duygudinamo likes this

Picture of Doc Block

Doc Block

16Aug12

Cinemascope Trilogy ends.

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W184

Films by Peter Tscherkassky

By David Hudson on March 16, 2011

"Tscherkassky sculpts with time and space, rhythms and arrhythmia in a way that feels like an entirely new film space, a new language altogether

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